지방공공서비스 공급상의 규모의 경제와 지방정부의 적정 인구규모

초록

Are bigger local governments better? The core rationale for Korean municipal government consolidation rests on the claim that 'bigger is better' on grounds that substantial scale economies exist in local government service provision. In the context of the public sector, scale economies usually refer to a decrease in the per capita cost for a given amount of public service as population served increases. However, existing research evidence on scale economies in local public service provision is very limited. Thus, it is appropriate to examine if scale economies exist in local public service provision and to estimate the minimum cost population size of Korean municipal governments. This study tests U-shaped nonlinear relationship between per capita expenditures as a proxy for unit cost and population or client group size as a measure of size, using panel data on 230 municipalities from 2008 to 2010. The results of this study show that scale economies exist in providing capital-intensive public services but not in providing labor-intensive public services. From a policy perspective, the results cast considerable doubt on using scale economies as the basis for local government consolidation and suggest that a different approach may be better than consolidating local governments.

키워드